Downloaded Android Apps Top iOS 44 to 31 Percent

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Android now has the lion's share of downloads apps, outstripping Apple's iOS by a 13 percent margin, according to an industry report by ABI Research.

“Android’s open source strategy is the main factor for its success,” said Lim Shiyang, a research associate for the Singapore-based ABI Research. “Being a free platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third party multi-platform and mobile operator app stores. These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market.”

The Android Market now has 315,000 apps, and a decommissioned rate of 37 percent. Apple's App Store has more than 600,000 apps and a decommissioned rate of 24 percent. MSNBC tried to make a quantity versus quality argument, but Android has only about half of the apps of Apple's App Store. So does that mean that because Apple has more apps it has less quality? No, we didn't think that argument was logical either.

However, we wished ABI had gone into more depth about the users and the platform, other than a throwaway bit about iOS users download twice as many apps as Android users. How many of those were paid versus free? Were the majority games? With an estimated 29 billion apps downloaded by the end of this year, we definitely need more data on the state of the industry.